The Republican Party Platform Under Donald Trump is Pro-Israel and Anti-Free Speech

With less than 30 days until the U.S. Presidential Election, Americans are being asked to choose between two parties that do not support freedom of speech.

Originally Published at The Last American Vagabond

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently called for repealing Section 230 of the Communications Act during an interview on CNN. In doing so, Clinton revealed her fear that without government moderation and control of the flow of information on the internet, the state might lose control.

“If they don’t moderate and monitor the content we lose total control… We need to remove the immunity from liability and we need to have guardrails. We need regulation,” Clinton stated.

Section 230 has historically provided immunity for online platforms from liability for third-party content. The legal doctrine supporting Section 230 has come under attack in recent years as politicians attempt to limit freedom of speech on the internet under the guise of fighting “disinformation” or “fake news”.

In September Clinton made similar statements while talking with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Clinton was rehashing her debunked Russian hysteria when she turned her focus towards Americans she believes are spreading false information.

“I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda, and whether they should be civilly, or even in some cases criminally, charged is something that would be a better deterrence, because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States,” the former first lady stated.

While she is no longer in office and not likely to run for president again, Clinton’s perspective aligns perfectly with the modern U.S. Democratic Party. This is because, in the age of COVID1984, the Democratic Party has come to be known as the party of censorship and lockdowns. Many Democratic politicians openly supported the Biden Administration’s efforts to pressure social media companies to silence Americans who questioned COVID-19 policies such as masking, social distancing, quarantines, so-called vaccination efforts, and lockdown orders.

The Biden Administration’s programs to manipulate social media has come to be know as the Censorship-Industrial Complex. The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released a lengthy report detailing the actions taken by the Biden Admin and social media companies.

“This interim report details the months long campaign by the Biden White House to coerce large companies, namely Meta (parent company of Facebook), Alphabet (parent company of YouTube), and Amazon, to censor books, videos, posts, and other content online. By the end of 2021, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon changed their content moderation policies in ways that were directly responsive to criticism from the Biden Administration,” the report states.

The report says the impact of the censorship was “devastating”.

“By suppressing free speech and intentionally distorting public debate in the modern town square, ideas and policies were no longer fairly tested and debated on their merits.”

In late August, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that senior officials from the Biden Administration repeatedly pressured Facebook to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire. Zuckerberg’s letter stated that he regretted not speaking up sooner.

Shortly after the letter was made public, the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Chairwoman Nancy Mace called on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to provide all White House communications with social media companies and between federal employees about efforts to pressure social media platforms to censor online content.

Due to these actions and statements from Democrats, it’s not surprising that many freedom minded individuals have once again fallen into the false binary by believing that it is only the Democrats and the Progressives who support censorship and other anti-liberty actions.

However, the fact remains that many people within the Republican Party, the Conservative movement, and Trump’s own MAGA movement also support censorship and limitations on freedom of speech. Specifically, these individuals support silencing people who are critical of Israel and the Zionist lobby.

The Republican Party’s Anti-Free Speech MIGA Platform

At the 2024 Republican National Convention the party adopted a platform which largely reflected the will of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. While some conservatives recognize that Trump is not a conservative — and actually a wishy washy, say-anything-to-win former Democrat — most of the party and MAGA see the 2024 platform as a victory.

Lip service is paid to the usual culture war issues, and promises of making America great remain. However, one of the most frightening elements of the platform is the focus on “pro-Hamas radicals”.

Here are clips from Trump’s recent campaign trail event. Trump openly states that Israel used to “control” the US Congress, and he says that it will again when he is president. He also makes it clear that your Constitutional Rights will not be honored, if you criticize Israel. pic.twitter.com/5Y9ltbr7GF

— The Last American Vagabond (@TLAVagabond) August 17, 2024

More recent clips of Trump saying that it used to be that if you said something bad about Israel you were “out of politics”, and other examples of this blind Israel bias or something more. pic.twitter.com/wzVJ4yFM6b

— The Last American Vagabond (@TLAVagabond) October 2, 2024

Here’s Trump saying he’ll send the DoJ to campuses to stop antisemitism. What’s that again about the Right protecting #FreeSpeech? This is the Woke Right (just like the Left) endorsing censorship of protected speech to stop “hate speech”. How is that different? #TwoPartyIllusion pic.twitter.com/BvELicPDUd

— The Last American Vagabond (@TLAVagabond) October 8, 2024

Under a section titled “America First: A Return to Common Sense” we see the statement, “Deport Pro-Hamas Radicals and Make Our College Campuses Safe and Patriotic Again”. Hamas is the ruling party in the Palestinian territory responsible for carrying out the terrorist attacks on October 7th, 2023.

This bullet point is likely a response to anti-Israel protests which broke out at college campuses across the United States this spring. While some protests were accused of being violent and threatening individuals, the vast majority were peaceful efforts to call attention to the genocide taking place in Gaza since October 7th, 2023.

The attempts to conflate all protesters as “pro-Hamas” is a weak effort by Trump and the Zionist lobby to demean the unified resistance to Israel’s bombing campaigns which have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. The movement against Israel’s actions is a diverse alliance of Palestinians, Progressive, Left-wing Anarchists and radicals, libertarians, peace activists, principled conservatives, and apolitical working class people who do not want their tax dollars going to the senseless killing of children, women, and men.

Here is what a Holocaust survivor has to say about what you are doing to Gaza: pic.twitter.com/UuqwSBxgKb

— The Last American Vagabond (@TLAVagabond) September 1, 2024

This is not Trump or the Republican Party’s first time insinuating that pro-Palestinian protesters are “pro-Hamas”. The Republican Party — like the Democratic Party — is completely under the thumb of the Israeli lobby. Both parties consistently support efforts to limit the freedom of speech of individuals who are critical of Israel.

In early May, House Democrats and Republicans voted in favor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which empowered the federal government to crack down on anti-Israel protests on campuses. Critics of the law say it was not about stopping antisemitism but instead focused on expanding the definition of antisemitism to include certain criticisms of Israel itself.

“We must give the Department of Education the tools to … hold college administrators accountable for refusing to address antisemitism on their campuses,” said Rep. Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.), the bill’s lead sponsor.

Trump also told a group of donors that “any student that protests” would be thrown out of the country. “You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump said according to donors at the event.

Additionally, in the weeks after Hamas’ attack on Israel, the majority of Republicans voted in favor of censuring Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib — the only Palestinian-American member of the U.S. Congress — after she was critical of Israel. Only 23 Republicans voted against the censuring.

By December of 2023, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution which equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

The rise of the Make Israel Great Again sentiment is already leading to real world consequences for some pro-Palestinian protesters. Newsweek recently reported on the case of Momodou Taal, a 30-year-old PhD student at Cornell University and a British national, who is facing the possibility of being forced to leave the country because of his participation in campus protests against Israel’s actions.

Taal is a student under the F-1 student visa program. He was one of four students suspended in the spring for protesting and was recently informed by the university of a second “temporary suspension”. This latest action could lead to his visa being terminated and him being deported.

None of these pro-Israel, anti-free speech actions should be surprising considering that one of Donald Trump’s largest donors have been the Adelson’s, first Sheldon, and now his widow Miriam, who took over the finances after her husband died in 2021. The Adelsons are unabashed Zionists who have deep pockets for those promising to protect and defend Israel’s interests at all costs.

Massive Police State as a Response to Illegal Immigration

It’s also worth noting that the 2024 Republican Party platform continues Trump’s promise to “Carry Out the Largest Deportation Operation In American History”. This is a promise Trump has been making on the campaign trail over the last 2 years and is likely to lead to a massive increase in police state measures by the federal government.

Unfortunately, the reality is that the border crisis has been allowed to fester to the point of Americans demanding something be done about violent crime from illegal immigrants, and ridiculous policies which allow violent, repeat offenders to roam American streets. Now that the domestic population is pumped full of fear based on half-truths and often exaggerated claims of immigrant caused violence, the solution of a smart border wall with facial recognition cameras and biometric scanning can be presented as the solution.

A “smart” or “virtual” border wall has been supported by Trump and the Biden administration. In February 2021, TLAV reported that more than 40 privacy, immigrants rights, and civil liberties organizations called on the Biden administration to abandon a bill which would extend the Trump administration’s border policy, particularly the ongoing creation of a “virtual” or biometric wall.

The letter came in response to the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 which would direct the Department of Homeland Security to implement new biometric and aerial surveillance technologies at ports of entry and along the U.S./Mexico border.

“This “smart border” surveillance technology is a continuation of the Trump administration’s racist border policies, not a break from it,” the letter stated. “We applaud President Biden’s efforts to halt Trump’s border wall construction and provide relief to immigrant communities, but protection from deportation and access to due process should not come at the cost of militarization and surveillance.”

The letter notes that the increase in surveillance technology at ports of entry is “concerning particularly because of increased biometric collection, which most prominently includes expanded facial recognition and DNA collection.”

Trump’s current answer to the immigration crisis is to call for the creation of a massive network of temporary holding facilities and camps as he empowers the national guard and/or the military to round up individuals accused of violating immigration laws. Former Trump administration officials told the Washington Post in early 2024 that he was “obsessed with having the military involved”.

The Post reported:

”As a model, he points to an Eisenhower-era program known as “Operation Wetback,” using a derogatory slur for Mexican migrants. The operation used military tactics to round up and remove migrant workers, sometimes transporting them in dangerous conditions that led to some deaths. Former administration officials and policy experts said staging an even larger operation today would face a bottleneck in detention space — a problem that Trump adviser Stephen Miller and other allies have proposed addressing by building mass deportation camps.”

While some experts doubt whether Trump will be able to implement such a massive plan, it will no doubt lead to a further expansion of the police state as cops are granted the ability to harass people based on the suspicion they might be undocumented.

Again, none of this should be surprising since Trump has openly pledged to “require local law enforcement agencies receiving DOJ grants to return to proven policing measures such as stop-and-frisk”. Stop-and-frisk is the unproven and anti-freedom policy which allowed cops to randomly stop and search suspects in the post-9/11 era. Trump continues to make these promises to police as he campaigns.

Overall, the Republican Party Platform, as well as the words and actions of Donald Trump, make it clear that they are not the party of free speech or liberty. Sure, Trump and the Republicans will speak up about Democratic censorship when it serves to further their goals, but they are also quick to call for censorship if it involves calling out their favorite ally, Israel.

Americans are unfortunately left with no realistic options that are not completely controlled by the Bilderberg Group and the Zionist Lobby.

Here’s a Trump video suggesting we “close up the Internet” & that you’re “foolish” for free speech concerns. And another suggesting the gov “take the guns first & go through due process second.” You might not be surprised to learn Kamala shares these views. #TwoPartyIllusion pic.twitter.com/k9eKPmwYXE

— The Last American Vagabond (@TLAVagabond) September 2, 2024